Discontent Over Migrants Takes a Toll on East German City

DRESDEN, Germany — More than one year later, they are still here, the thousands of people who rally every Monday under the banner of the Pegida movement to vent their rage against Muslims, migrants and especially the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Pegida — the German acronym for Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West — no longer attracts the 20,000-plus people who marched in January.

But a Pegida candidate received 9.6 percent of the vote in mayoral elections here in June, and the arrival of hundreds of thousands of refugees in Germany this summer revived the Monday rallies.

It is taking a toll on this beautifully restored city in the state of Saxony.

Tourism has held up, thanks to visitors from abroad, the city’s tourism chief, Johannes Lohmeyer, said in a telephone interview.

But a glance at bookings for 2016, he said, suggested that “we have to try harder to keep the level, and that will be a challenge.”

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The German anti-immigration movement Pegida started in Dresden in October 2014 and spread to other cities, gathering followers and prompting a backlash.Published OnFeb. 11, 2015

“Silicon Saxony,” as it is sometimes known, is also suffering. Dresden is the only city in the former Communist East with a top-ranked university and three of the Max Planck research institutes. Now, it is common to hear that foreign speakers have declined to appear in the city or have insisted on overnighting elsewhere if they do.

It is impossible to know how many academics have rejected posts here, or have refused to even apply, in response to violence directed at migrants. But Martin Dulig, Saxony’s economics minister, said in October that the state “has already suffered huge damage, economically and culturally.”

He spoke out days after Pegida marked its first birthday, on Oct. 19. In Dresden’s lovely center that day, a couple and their teenage son from northern Germany, on midterm break, said no, they did not want to talk about Pegida. If they had known about the anniversary, they would have skipped Dresden.

I chatted to a half-dozen Pegida supporters. Michael Skora, 56, kept me longest, so his tirade covered the most ground: against the Americans, the weapons industry, NATO, the news media and above all, Ms. Merkel and her government.

Had anything really changed in Dresden? No, he admitted. “Things are good. So we’re going to the demo to make sure it stays that way.”

“They think they can pull the wool over people’s eyes,” he said. “It’s not even a joke anymore. They should really get some people who know what they are doing.”

As Pegida massed perhaps 15,000 people that evening on Theater Square, their opponents converged on the same spot. Mike Schreibler, 39, a lanky software developer, said he usually had to watch his children on Mondays, but they were away, and it was important to come out against Pegida, “a shame for Dresden.”

“They always say they have nothing against foreigners, then behave exactly opposite,” he said.

Some of the anti-Pegida crowd were fierce. “Nazis out!” they yelled. They chanted their motto — “Say it loud, say it clear, refugees are welcome here!” — aggressively, and jangled nerves by exploding firecrackers.

Only hundreds of hefty riot police officers prevented clashes. These ‘‘RoboCops’’ moved eerily through murky alleys, darkened by the refusal of the Semper opera house and churches to light their facades and give Pegida a picturesque backdrop.

Technically speaking, it was peaceful. Emotionally, unsettling.

Since that night, at least 200,000 more newcomers have entered Germany. In Paris, 130 people have died in terrorist bloodshed in which two of the attackers apparently entered Europe with the refugees. Scores more refugee shelters across Germany have been attacked, some rendered unusable by arson.

This past weekend, refugees in four states, including hundreds housed in Tempelhof Airport in Berlin, battled after disputes in food lines. Dozens were detained, and at least seven people treated in hospital.

Winter has descended. One of discontent.

Correction:

An earlier version of this article incorrectly paraphrased a comment by a Turkish-German writer, Akif Pirincci, at the rally. Although he criticized the influx of refugees in general, he did not mention them in the context of a comment referring to the Nazi concentration camps, according to an audio recording of his speech. Mocking a suggestion from a politician in the governing party that critics of the refugee policy could just leave Germany, Mr. Pirincci said, “There would, of course, be other alternatives, but the death camps are unfortunately out of action.”